Statistical Approaches to Leaving Religion

Quantitative research has relatively recently become a prominent approach in the social scientific study of religion. While there are a handful of examples of such studies from the first half of the past century, quantitatively oriented research on religion has been a more common occurrence since the 1960s (Voas 2007). Predominantly a result of significant technological advancements in the second half of the twentieth century that allow for complex calculations to be carried out instantaneously by a computer, this development follows a similar surge in the application of statistical methods across the social sciences more broadly (Blalock 1989). Early quantitative researchers on apostasy (for example Caplowitz and Sherrow 1977; Hunsberger 1976; Roof and Hadaway 1977; Wuthnow and Glock 1973) responded to a need for measuring a changing religious landscape – an undertaking that required statistical tools. Since then, quantitative research has continued to thrive. Today, the amount of resources available for scholars interested in studying religious disengagement quantitatively are abundant and constantly growing. Such resources, which are discussed in this chapter, include a wide range of publicly available data sets as well as statistical software programs that have the capacity to perform advanced statistical analysis. Although statistical methods are increasingly popular in the study of religion, this approach has been criticised for its limited ability to thoroughly capture diverse meanings that exist in the social world (Gergen 1999). This has also been noted specifically in relation to research on religion and nonreligion. Yamane (2000), for example, asserts that highly subjective phenomena, such as religious feelings and experiences, are inherently unquantifiable. Despite this criticism, statistical methods provide important strengths and insights on apostasy that cannot be discerned from the use of qualitative approaches. Along these lines, Voas (2007) maintains that quantitative research provides rigor, clarity, and the ability to distinguish social trends and patterns. In this chapter, I explore approaches, opportunities, challenges, and limitations of using statistical methods to study the phenomenon of individuals